CHAPTER 1
Veer was miserable. He stared at the yellow and red tiled floor of Medley Middle School while walking to his locker on the second floor. Today was his first day of junior high. Many kids were excited about this, but not him. Middle school just meant more bullies to watch out for, more kids to embarrass himself in front of, and worst of all, a grueling gym class every single day.
First, he had to walk to the other side of the school to find the stairs. Veer paid close attention to where he was, for Medley was a huge school, and he didn't want to get lost on the first day of the school year. As he walked, he noticed all the colorful signs posted on the bulletin boards beside classrooms. Some read "Welcome 7TH and 8TH graders!" Others said "We are going to have a fantastic year!"
A huge influx of kids came storming down the once empty hallway like a herd of buffalo. The mere force of them knocked Veer off his feet and he fell to the cold floor. They didn't even bother to move around him, but just trampled right over him. "Bus number 52 has just arrived," the monotone voice of the school secretary boomed through the speakers.
"You could have told me earlier," Veer muttered to himself while getting up and brushing the dirt off his new and now stained collared shirt. His first day of school was already a disaster.
"Aww, a little sevy got a boo-boo!" a voice called from down the hall. Veer looked up to see three eighth-grade boys in ripped jeans and black leather jackets marching toward him. Just the thing to make his day worse: bullies.
"Do you know what today is, punk?" the tallest eighth grader asked him.
"Tuesday?" Veer responded.
"Wrong, idiot. It's Sevy-Bop Day!" With that, the eighth grader smashed him on the head with his fist and walked away laughing.
Veer was slow to recover, rubbing his head to soothe the pain. This day was just getting worse. His first days of school were always bad, but this was a new record: two catastrophes in a matter of minutes.
After slowly collecting his books off the floor, Veer set off once more to find his locker. Soon he reached the stairs and started to climb them one at a time.
As soon as he reached the double doorway, Veer turned left and headed down a hall lined with old rusty lockers. It was just Veer's luck for his locker to be in the only part of the school that wasn't refurbished in the recent renovation. As he approached his locker, the very last one in the huge hall, he dug deep into his pockets and pulled out a tiny piece of paper that contained his lock code. Veer strained to recognize the numbers that were scribbled upon the paper in his messy handwriting. He luckily managed to figure out two of the numbers, but wasn't sure if the third was a 2 or a 3. He'd just have to try both codes to get his locker open. Now how did it go? Turn left to 33, then right all the way around and back to 17, then left again? No that wasn't right. It was the opposite. Right, left, right. Yeah, that was the way. After trying the first code, the locker didn't open. Veer had better luck the second try as the lock clicked loose. But now there was a different problem, the locker was jammed stuck. It took another three attempts before the locker suddenly flew open and Veer fell to the floor. He pushed himself onto his feet and deposited his books in the ancient rusty locker. Now it was time for the beginning-of-school assembly.
After traveling through the hallway and down the stairs, Veer once again heard the nasal monotone voice of the school secretary from the speakers.
It squeaked, "All seventh and eighth graders report to the gymnasium for the beginning-of-school assembly, all seventh and eighth graders report to the gymnasium for the beginning-of-school assembly, thank you."
Suddenly there was a murmur of voices and a soft thumping of feet. It was like in the movies when there was a tiny breeze before a hurricane or tornado. Oh no, not another mad rush of kids like the bus riders! Soon a huge crowd of kids came storming down the hallway toward the gym. But it was different this time; Veer was prepared. As soon as the huge crowd hit him, he started weaving in and out. He still got bumped around, but at least he made it to the gym safely.
Once Veer entered the gym, he witnessed an amazing sight. Hundreds and hundreds of kids were filed into tight lines, with a minuscule path marked with cones cutting through the middle of the square. This was the largest group of kids Veer had ever seen at one place in his entire life. What seemed like an endless line of students was herded into the tiny gym, the teachers being the shepherds. The teachers directed the kids into the compact formations with no room to breathe. Veer was soon packed next to the worst possible people to sit next to, the eighth-grade bullies he had the pleasure of meeting earlier that day.
"Hey, look, Jed, it's that dweeb who didn't know what Sevy-Bop day was." The bully next to him, a stocky lump of an eighth grader named Gavin, laughed into Veer's ear.
"Yeah, that pathetic little coward who we almost knocked out in the hallway." Jed obnoxiously guffawed.
"Don't ever call me a coward," Veer mumbled. It wasn't that he was scared of bullies; he was just annoyed with them.
"What did you say, dweeb?" Jed yanked his collar as if he was trying to choke him. Just as the bully drew his fist back to aim a punch at Veer, a piercing screech echoed throughout the gymnasium.
Everyone immediately covered their ears to shield them from the deafening sound. Suddenly the piercing stopped and everyone looked up to see a tall thin man standing in the middle of the makeshift stage at the front of the gym. "Sorry about that. We're experiencing technical difficulties with the microphones this year." The man's low voice boomed throughout the gym. "Anyway without further ado, I welcome all rising seventh and eighth graders to the Beginning-of-the-Year Assembly. My name is Mr. Thomas and I am the vice principal here at Medley Middle. We would like to start off our program with our new principal, Mr. Harrison."
There was a short round of applause after the vice principal's talk. Suddenly, a burst of laughter sounded as a short stocky bald man waddled up onto the stage. Sticking out from the back of his pants was a long tail of toilet paper dragging on the floor. "Excuse me, silence please, silence," the principal stated in a thick New York accent to interrupt the laughter. Still, stifled giggles were heard throughout the gym. Is this a joke? Veer thought to himself. But soon he learned it wasn't, as the vice principal bent down and whispered into the principal's ear. Veer couldn't help laughing to himself as he watched the principal's face turn from pale to beet red. The principal stood up on his toes to reach the microphone and stated in an embarrassed voice, "I have some matters to attend to, but I will be back shortly." With that, the principal did the closest thing to sprinting offstage that a stocky fifty-year-old could do.
The principal was back in less than thirty seconds, panting crazily with beads of sweat erupting from his forehead. His shoulders drooped as he forced his tiny legs up the stairs and onto the stage. "Students and teachers, I am Douglas Harrison, your new school principal. As the new principal, I have decided to host Medley Middle School's first annual Medley of Talents Competition." The principal paused, expecting applause, yet he was only met with sarcastic gasps of surprise. He continued, "This contest will test students in several aspects. The Writing and Math Olympiad will test students in academics. Students will be given a chance to showcase their musical talents in the music competition. An athletic competition will challenge students physically." Veer thought everything sounded good up until the athletics part; he wasn't so keen on that. "Groups are required to have three people, and to make things fair, there has to be at least one student from seventh grade and one from eighth. A single student from each group will compete in every competition. Also every group needs a teacher as a coach, and one teacher can coach three groups maximum. All students are required to compete." Groans were heard from all corners of the gym. The principal raised his stubby hand to signal silence. "You will receive all of this information on a form that your homeroom teacher will give you. Fill out this form and pick your groups by next Monday or else you will receive an hour of detention for every day it is late."
"Can he seriously do that?" a scrawny pale kid with glasses asked Veer. Veer shrugged in response.
"Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There is a prize for winning each section of the whole Medley competition. The exact prizes haven't been decided upon yet, but I can tell you that they will be worth over a hundred dollars each." The principal chuckled.
"Now that's what I'm talking about," the scrawny kid yelled trying to attract attention.
This principal must be seriously into this competition, Veer thought to himself as the principal waddled offstage.
The next ten minutes seemed like an eternity as the vice principal discussed school procedures. Afterward, Ms. Bertha, a plump older lady huffed onto the stage. She went on and on in her high-pitched voice with the usual introduction to middle school spiel that Veer had heard at least a dozen times. He caught the usual catchphrases including "with freedom comes responsibility" and "don't be afraid make new friends." Just as Veer was nodding off to sleep, the bell cut Ms. Bertha off.
The sound of a thousand kids talking, yelling, and screaming exploded into Veer's ear, shaking him up from his drowsy state. Now it was time for Veer to head off to his first period class.
After picking up his books, which seemed to weigh at least two tons, from his old and rusty locker, Veer headed to the bathroom to wash up. Luckily, the bathroom was right next to his locker, so he left his books outside and headed in. His luck didn't last long, for this was the worst school bathroom Veer had seen in his life, and his old school's was pretty bad! Wet muddy paper towels were strewn across the cracked tile floor, the walls were dented, and the paint was peeling off. Veer tiptoed around the paper towels, holding his nose to block the reeking smell. Once he got the ancient faucet running, he splashed cool water on his face. He also looked in the full-length mirror to see if there were any scratches on his face from the trampling, or when the bullies almost beat him up. He looked into his own big dark brown eyes and at his tanned brown skin. He ran his eyes down his short scrawny body, his soft shortly-cut black hair, and his narrow face. It seemed to him that his ears were sticking out too much and his face was too thin. At four feet six inches and seventy-five pounds as a twelve-year-old, it seemed like almost anyone could beat him up.
Why couldn't I be tall and strong like my cousins, or at least be average-sized like all my friends? How come I got all of the bad genes in my family? Veer thought to himself.
After drying his face off with the coarse school paper towels, Veer glanced at himself once again in the mirror and headed out the bathroom door.
As Veer was picking up his heavy load of books outside the bathroom door, he felt someone bump up into his shoulder. He looked up to see a familiar round face with big glasses.
"Oh, sorry, Veer," Vidya, one of his best friends, said in her characteristic bubbly voice. Vidya was Veer's nanny's daughter. He had pretty much grown up with her, as she had spent all of her holidays and summers with Veer's family. Veer considered Vidya his sister, and she could always bring a smile to Veer's face.
"Hey, Vidya, how's your first day going so far?" Veer replied. "Mine isn't going too well."
"Same here. I've already had five people call me you-know-what." She sighed. Ever since preschool, students had jeered at Vidya, calling her "four-eyes." She earned the nasty nickname because of her thick big glasses sitting atop her round nose. Even with today's technology, the ophthalmologists couldn't fix her poor eyesight. Instead of ignoring the years of taunting, like Veer did, Vidya had grown extremely sensitive to nicknames.
"Don't worry about it," Veer comforted his friend. "Everyone's strange on the first day of school." He glanced at the clock. "I'll catch you later because I'm almost late to first period."
"I guess I am too. Bye, Veer." Vidya waved. She briskly walked away, her long black ponytail swished side to side.
Veer remembered something about tardies and detention from Mr. Thomas's speech at the assembly, and picked up his books and ran to first period. His first class was science, and Veer didn't want to be late on the first day. He ran all the way from his locker upstairs, to Room 151, which was downstairs and at the opposite end of the school. He stepped into the room just as the ear-splitting bell rang and grabbed the only remaining seat, next to the scrawny kid sitting in front of him at the assembly.
"Hey! This seat is taken!" he yelled right into Veer's face.
"Sorry, but it's the only one left," Veer said as he scooted his stool away from the strange student.
"Why, I oughtta ..." The kid tried to act like a tough guy. He pulled up his sleeve as to show his muscles, but all there was to show was a skinny pale arm.
"Oughtta do what, Greg? Cry to your mommy?" A kid behind Veer snickered. Before Greg could retaliate, the teacher's loud rough voice echoed through the large room.
"Hola, me llamo Profesor Coltz. Cómo están?" the tall teacher said in a proud voice. Everyone in the classroom looked at each other in confusion, waiting for someone brave enough to ask the teacher what he was talking about. Is this guy lost? Veer wondered to himself.
"Aren't you supposed to be teaching us science?" Greg yelled. "I mean, come on. I want to learn. Right, you guys?" He looked back expecting support. Instead he got a bunch of sleepy bored faces and a couple of snickering classmates.
"Oh, I thought I was teaching Spanish 1 this year," the teacher said in a Spanish accent with a concerned face. He was tall with combed dark hair and a short beard. After a couple of seconds, the worried frown turned into a mischievous grin. "Yes, I did it!" he proclaimed. "I knew I could trick you guys. I was just messing with you with all of that Spanish stuff and you bought it! I should be given an award for that." He laughed.
Veer sighed in relief. He was worried that he was stuck in the wrong class!
"Anyway, what I said in Spanish was `Hello, I'm your teacher Mr. Coltz. How are you doing?'"
"Good," the class said in a monotone in unison.
"Geez. What are you guys, a bunch of drones? Come on, cheer up, it's the first day of school!" Mr. Coltz said sarcastically. "Something that will cheer you up is science this year!" With that, he presented to the class a slideshow about the "Upcoming Year in 7th Grade Science."
The slideshow had a bunch of interesting pictures of several fascinating topics that would be part of the curriculum. Veer and several other students were actually looking forward to science this year. He could already tell that Mr. Coltz wasn't a dull science teacher and wanted to make things exciting for his students.
After the slideshow was over, Mr. Coltz explained all the classroom rules, went over lab safety procedures, and the handling of equipment. Veer was happy to hear that Mr. Coltz wasn't using a textbook, because textbooks made his backpack extremely heavy and he would almost topple over whenever he put it on. Also Veer was glad when he heard Mr. Coltz say there wasn't going to be much homework this year. The class had given him a round of applause in gratitude when he stated this. Everybody but Greg had clapped because he said he liked homework, but he only did so to attract attention.
For the rest of the class period, Mr. Coltz talked about the outdoor activity the class was starting the next day. It involved rabbits, so many of the girls cooed "awww" and several boys smirked. Mr. Coltz thought it was funny and laughed about how his students did that every single year.
Veer was beginning to like Mr. Coltz more and more. He's definitely going to be a popular coach for the Medley of Talents competition. Veer made a note to himself to try extra hard to get Mr. Coltz as his coach.
The deafening bell interrupted Mr. Coltz's explanation of the outdoor activity. Students immediately got up and stampeded toward the door. "No homework tonight! Have an awesome first day!" he yelled above the din to the exiting students. Veer stayed behind to ask Mr. Coltz to be his coach, but he was too late. A bunch of other students had swarmed around the science teacher and Veer had no chance of getting through the ring of students asking for a coach. He had no time to spare, so he said a quick "bye," and ran to catch his next class.
